nuncaquite
New Member
I dont know if there are any tea party on meso. But you could start a thread and educate the members here.
MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Affordable Care Act (ACA) - Obamacare
- Thread starter Michael Scally MD
- Start date
I dont know if there are any tea party on meso. But you could start a thread and educate the members here.
BBC Care Base Coverage Provisions (Varies by state and HOOD):
Preliminary Breakdown - Coverage is "Universal", of course..
* Tier 1 Routine care/annual physical - Minimal 22" flat screen OR two CRT style televsions of ANY Size. Ring, wristwatch, necklace, earrings containing a minimum of Quality PLATING or watered down Precious metal (we recommend your smaller pieces first as future planning). OR - A PROGRAMMABLE REMOTE CONTROL by quality manu will suffice for maximum of 2 visits w/1 per year limitation.
* Tier 2 Extended Service (If they gotta INVADE, RESET, SCAN, or CUT Ya) will require a minimum of a modern LED/Plasma 55" or greater flat screen(sorry 50" no longer qualifies). Or jewelry appraising at no less than $500.00. Illness requiring a combination of 2 with a MAX of THREE of the above PROCEDURES will require additional jewelry Personal Accessories, OR BRay DVD/PS3 Console or equivalent (Games and movies MAY be considered as addiitonal value depending on personal preference and current needs of the billing representative). *** Cell Phones and NotePads will be considered on a limited basis. ALL DEPENDING on DIAGNOSIS Coding as it pertains to PROCEDURE Coding - OF COURSE.. (Your provider must Pre-authorize certain procedures under certain conditions prior to acceptance of GOODZ for service)
* Tier 3 Major Medical/Illness (Heart/Cancer/Addidental Trauma) -
Major Medical Equates to Major Assets. Car titles and "Signifcant Assets" may be utilized on a per case basis. The asset MUST be valued as 100% in excess of the TOTAL ESTIMATED SERVICE as padding for "service quote omissions, unforeseens, and patient withholdings". The balance will be refunded in full if assets are reacquired in the allowed time period (See fine print below), or PAID as 50% of excess payment with consideration of current appraisal value. (please remove all Christmass tree personal fragrance, general refuse/waste, used condoms, and dirty removable textiles prior to appraiser inspection.)
* Tier 4 Life Threatening or Prognosis Negative Diagnosis as GENETIC or AGE RELATED -
Requires lien on residential dwelling, land, or equivalent asset. We DO accept Property of others (family must be considered first).
FINE PRINT -
-Must pass limited background check or have at least three friends to verbally vouch for you.
-Assets are returnable to patients upon CASH payment remitted in full.
-As our warehousing space is limited, Assets are held on a limited basis as follows; Tier 1 & Tier 2 as ONE YEAR MAXIMUM prior to asset disposition/liquidation. Tier 3 is a TWO YEAR Max. Tier 4 is FIVE YEAR MAX.
- All holdings are subject to an annual lease rate of 29.00%APR (*Effective Rate NOT Disclose due to extensive hidden charges and service fees). You will be quoted you potential buy back on a monthly time matrix prior to agreement to service.
- All physicians, Hospitals, and "involved servicing/product vendors" to be HELD HARMLESS and essentially a LICENSE TO MAIM YOU, as we do attempt to emulate historical medical establishment as accurately as possible...
**** We apologize, but do to current socio-political and legal stipulations, service in exchange and SEXUAL FAVORS is NOT Accepted at this time. We will advise you at our first immediate notice of problem resolution. A schedule of fees will be issued at that time. It should be noted that the appraisal process will remain in place and all "human Favors' will be valued with Age, Condition, Aesthetics, and diagnosed condition considered. Illness DOES NOT guarantee acceptance of service. It should finally be noted that the current establishment DOES allow for medical professionals to accept sexual favors in exchange for acceptance of EGO and for a realized end product of his inflated view of him/herself ONLY. Your obtained value is relative, but IN NO WAY medical service applied..
[
)]
:drooling:
Preliminary Breakdown - Coverage is "Universal", of course..
* Tier 1 Routine care/annual physical - Minimal 22" flat screen OR two CRT style televsions of ANY Size. Ring, wristwatch, necklace, earrings containing a minimum of Quality PLATING or watered down Precious metal (we recommend your smaller pieces first as future planning). OR - A PROGRAMMABLE REMOTE CONTROL by quality manu will suffice for maximum of 2 visits w/1 per year limitation.
* Tier 2 Extended Service (If they gotta INVADE, RESET, SCAN, or CUT Ya) will require a minimum of a modern LED/Plasma 55" or greater flat screen(sorry 50" no longer qualifies). Or jewelry appraising at no less than $500.00. Illness requiring a combination of 2 with a MAX of THREE of the above PROCEDURES will require additional jewelry Personal Accessories, OR BRay DVD/PS3 Console or equivalent (Games and movies MAY be considered as addiitonal value depending on personal preference and current needs of the billing representative). *** Cell Phones and NotePads will be considered on a limited basis. ALL DEPENDING on DIAGNOSIS Coding as it pertains to PROCEDURE Coding - OF COURSE.. (Your provider must Pre-authorize certain procedures under certain conditions prior to acceptance of GOODZ for service)
* Tier 3 Major Medical/Illness (Heart/Cancer/Addidental Trauma) -
Major Medical Equates to Major Assets. Car titles and "Signifcant Assets" may be utilized on a per case basis. The asset MUST be valued as 100% in excess of the TOTAL ESTIMATED SERVICE as padding for "service quote omissions, unforeseens, and patient withholdings". The balance will be refunded in full if assets are reacquired in the allowed time period (See fine print below), or PAID as 50% of excess payment with consideration of current appraisal value. (please remove all Christmass tree personal fragrance, general refuse/waste, used condoms, and dirty removable textiles prior to appraiser inspection.)
* Tier 4 Life Threatening or Prognosis Negative Diagnosis as GENETIC or AGE RELATED -
Requires lien on residential dwelling, land, or equivalent asset. We DO accept Property of others (family must be considered first).
FINE PRINT -
-Must pass limited background check or have at least three friends to verbally vouch for you.
-Assets are returnable to patients upon CASH payment remitted in full.
-As our warehousing space is limited, Assets are held on a limited basis as follows; Tier 1 & Tier 2 as ONE YEAR MAXIMUM prior to asset disposition/liquidation. Tier 3 is a TWO YEAR Max. Tier 4 is FIVE YEAR MAX.
- All holdings are subject to an annual lease rate of 29.00%APR (*Effective Rate NOT Disclose due to extensive hidden charges and service fees). You will be quoted you potential buy back on a monthly time matrix prior to agreement to service.
- All physicians, Hospitals, and "involved servicing/product vendors" to be HELD HARMLESS and essentially a LICENSE TO MAIM YOU, as we do attempt to emulate historical medical establishment as accurately as possible...
**** We apologize, but do to current socio-political and legal stipulations, service in exchange and SEXUAL FAVORS is NOT Accepted at this time. We will advise you at our first immediate notice of problem resolution. A schedule of fees will be issued at that time. It should be noted that the appraisal process will remain in place and all "human Favors' will be valued with Age, Condition, Aesthetics, and diagnosed condition considered. Illness DOES NOT guarantee acceptance of service. It should finally be noted that the current establishment DOES allow for medical professionals to accept sexual favors in exchange for acceptance of EGO and for a realized end product of his inflated view of him/herself ONLY. Your obtained value is relative, but IN NO WAY medical service applied..
[
)]:drooling:Where do I sign up? Is your software at least up and running after having 3 years to get it ready? Are you going to tell me that Im covered for everything--and then later tell me there are different levels of coverage? What are the levels, polyester, plastic, and tin can? I have a pre-existing condition with my vision. I cant see aca working[
Last edited:
Maybe this is where the money is going ? Folllow the money and you`ll find the problem.
A new study says UnitedHealth Group Inc. CEO Stephen Hemsley made $1,731 for every dollar that a typical UnitedHealth worker made last year.
UnitedHealth CEO paid 1,737 times average worker - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
$102 Million Payout To United Healthcare CEO Draws Outrage
April 29, 2010
By Press Release
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today expressed outrage over reports that United Healthcare paid its CEO $102 million in compensation last year and called on the state Department of Insurance to consider executive pay in future company rate cases.
http://ctwatchdog.com/health/102-million-payout-to-united-healthcare-ceo-draws-outrage
A new study says UnitedHealth Group Inc. CEO Stephen Hemsley made $1,731 for every dollar that a typical UnitedHealth worker made last year.
UnitedHealth CEO paid 1,737 times average worker - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
$102 Million Payout To United Healthcare CEO Draws Outrage
April 29, 2010
By Press Release
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today expressed outrage over reports that United Healthcare paid its CEO $102 million in compensation last year and called on the state Department of Insurance to consider executive pay in future company rate cases.
http://ctwatchdog.com/health/102-million-payout-to-united-healthcare-ceo-draws-outrage
Got that right Z! Can anyone tell me what the fuck insurance companies do for patients EXCEPT CONTROL patient ACCESS to HEALTH CARE?
Not a damn thing.
They have been the bane for patients ever since they became fully vested in the 1970s. Moreover not one of these insurance industries "shareholders" whose pockets are lined with money provide any DIRECT or INDIRECT service to patients.
Hell no they pocket profits off the misery of patients!
DON'T believe me? Really!!!
Tell me ONE THING your health insurance has done for you lately except; delay diagnostic studies, provider payments FOR MONTHS, limit more advanced or even experimental treatment for patients with rare conditions, refuse access to a timely diagnosis, etc, etc, etc.
I'm so FUCKING TIRED of having to hire FOUR office staff whom are deemed PROFICIENT in health insurance (including Medicaid and Medicare) billing to ensure ANY payment.
Consequently I gladly perform 30% of my services for nothing. (ALL have very limited access to out patient primary care and unfortunately many are athletes)
I've devoted my lifestyle my family and a lot of money to my chosen profession BUT the last thing I'll do, is line the pockets of shareholders!
Ok, it could only get worse if the government does it!
Why? Because they have no interest in controlling costs as does the private sector.
Those are factoids from any government entitlement, the beast GROWS and GROWS.
The answer! Government must set certain standards which the private sector abides by such as provider payment in 60 days, immediate approval of conventional studies and treatments, etc.
Hey guys for those who believe Government should and must stay out of private health care, your opinion would have been reversed quite readily as little as two years ago.
That is before then, if you had a existing condition prostate cancer for example, and changed jobs for whatever reason, coverage would have been DENIED for at least ONE YEAR!
Yep now your tainted goods and have a PRE-EXISTING condition. Shit that's like purchasing a car with a malfunction, it will cost THEM from the beginning!!!!
A better wait and see approach seems more prudent. I mean crap death eliminates the need for insurance. That's how these dip shits think because at the end of the day it's all about THE MONEY.
Many a politician has argued "health care" until they are blue in the face but unless they LIVE IT as physicians and SEE IT as patients they will never understand the problems inherent in our current system and those remedies more likely to be effective or ineffective or flat out destructive.
My daily rant is now complete!
Jim
Not a damn thing.
They have been the bane for patients ever since they became fully vested in the 1970s. Moreover not one of these insurance industries "shareholders" whose pockets are lined with money provide any DIRECT or INDIRECT service to patients.
Hell no they pocket profits off the misery of patients!
DON'T believe me? Really!!!
Tell me ONE THING your health insurance has done for you lately except; delay diagnostic studies, provider payments FOR MONTHS, limit more advanced or even experimental treatment for patients with rare conditions, refuse access to a timely diagnosis, etc, etc, etc.
I'm so FUCKING TIRED of having to hire FOUR office staff whom are deemed PROFICIENT in health insurance (including Medicaid and Medicare) billing to ensure ANY payment.
Consequently I gladly perform 30% of my services for nothing. (ALL have very limited access to out patient primary care and unfortunately many are athletes)
I've devoted my lifestyle my family and a lot of money to my chosen profession BUT the last thing I'll do, is line the pockets of shareholders!
Ok, it could only get worse if the government does it!
Why? Because they have no interest in controlling costs as does the private sector.
Those are factoids from any government entitlement, the beast GROWS and GROWS.
The answer! Government must set certain standards which the private sector abides by such as provider payment in 60 days, immediate approval of conventional studies and treatments, etc.
Hey guys for those who believe Government should and must stay out of private health care, your opinion would have been reversed quite readily as little as two years ago.
That is before then, if you had a existing condition prostate cancer for example, and changed jobs for whatever reason, coverage would have been DENIED for at least ONE YEAR!
Yep now your tainted goods and have a PRE-EXISTING condition. Shit that's like purchasing a car with a malfunction, it will cost THEM from the beginning!!!!
A better wait and see approach seems more prudent. I mean crap death eliminates the need for insurance. That's how these dip shits think because at the end of the day it's all about THE MONEY.
Many a politician has argued "health care" until they are blue in the face but unless they LIVE IT as physicians and SEE IT as patients they will never understand the problems inherent in our current system and those remedies more likely to be effective or ineffective or flat out destructive.
My daily rant is now complete!
Jim
WOW - You are multi-faceted indeed (multi-personality perhaps)
(The Real Reason I replied in my second to last paragraph if you want to skip the cheap shots)
If you are having this much trouble getting claims processed, you either have a lot of odd conditions going on, OR - The reason you have (4) billing associates is because they are ALL INCOMPETENT IMBECILES (thank God I started using Google which offers spell checking - But has is SPOILED MY FLAVOR?!!?- LOL) which have slid under "The Radar of Competency" which is most likely to occur within a Financially Flourishing Industry. I'm Guessin you are not directly affiliated with any Major Hospitals as "On-Campus" or "financially Proximate".. The BAIN of any good hearted small practice trying to make it in a cruel $ World
.
Personally, and with experience in past large group plans as BC/BS related, I have never really had any issues getting fair care for the health issues I have had to deal with up to early 40's. I would say I have an "average healthy background to date THOUGH..." So may not be a full assessment of course... But I figure the Medical Billing Process is POLITICAL to some degree, and well as and ART FORM(which would explain YOUR Frustration to some degree too.. LOL)
I have typically been able to go to my own chosen specialist with no reprisal from BC/BS, and no hubbub from the particular servicing medical provider. I ACTUALLY attribute this to these offices have successfully astute BILLING DEPARTMENTS... These are technicians that understand PROCEDURE CODE vs. DIAGNOSIS CODE as it relates to Invoiced patient treatment. I suspect the FAILURE of Medical offices and providing establishments is a FAILURE OF PROPER LIAISON BETWEEN Practice Management, Office Financial Management, and the Physicians checking the "yellow sheet"... I also live in an area with a large older and ILL-for-Other-Reason Population - which may lend much experience to the offices round here, GEOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING as related to DEMOGRAPHICS. This MAY also DEFINE ACTUARIAL CARRIER EXPECTATIONS thus IMPACTING Claim Handling Protocol for the area in specific (your town)...
It should be noted the Service Provider Managing Offices are utilizing MEDICAL BILLING IT PLATFORMS which are CRITICAL in EFFECTIVE INVOICING and Patient Billing Process. (http://www.thessigroup.com/aboutus.aspx) is a major player in this market.. The companies products and services may DEFINE how astute your finance department needs to actually be to succeed...
WHAT SHOCKS ME FURTHER, is the degree of IGNORANCE that Physicians actually MAINTAIN with regard to policy coverages as they apply (again, poor liaison with office management/Practice directive failure). This can only be a DIRECT END RESULT OF MAKING SOO MUCH G.D. MONEY THAT THE INDUSTRY CANT EVEN STOP TO COUNT IT....! I speculate the work load on docs is kept at the level high enough to keep them from even poking their noses into insurance coverage, and with intent. After all, we would not want to piss off our Patient insurance providing vendors and get on the SHIT LIST now would YOU...!!!
** My Suspicion and understanding the personality which you portray here (be it real or not, but as example), is that you WOULD have a good understanding of coverage to a general degree. In fact better that many docs, and due to your superior MEMORY Skills as well as your ABILITY TO IDENTIFY PERTINENT ISSUES CLEARLY. Your Failure would be the inability to operate within the lines. AND WORSE, you might even potentially "Press/Test the system in place" as "Provocation by Idealism", as well as "Psychological Literal Construct Confinement Issues" ( I could help with that you know...;)) You MAY Have even created a CONDITION of CONUNDRUM within your office and practice as a result of all this which is further dementing the demented you are employing...!?? There are MANY REASONS one hand never sees the other one in your profession. But Convenient KAddeeraKZ are becoming a Questionable Luxury theze days aren't they?? ( I had to train my spell check to like thoze - LOL)
POINT - I would have suspected all along that Physicians are extremely astute at policy coverage and ACTUAL Claim disposition by carriers. HOWEVER, and after Polling enough of them - I am starting to REALLY Believe they are NOT..! After all, this would render medical doctors the ULTIMATE CLAIM ADJUSTERS now wouldn't it? Not P&C, Not Auto, Not Work Comp, Not Even Life as Annuity, - BUT AS DETERMINANTS OF WHETHER A PERSON LIVES OR DIES and as a SINGLE PERSONS DECISION. Its once thing to decide where a home gets a new roof, and another to negotiate what a Finger is worth in a given accident with a negligent party involved, State laws even determine is a worker gets paid, HOW MUCH, and If he has to "yell OUch" on the job with witnesses... But the medical field pertaining to INSURANCE is of a MUCH MORE PROFOUND IMPLICATION - LIFE and Quality there of...! HOWEVER, I am beginning to CONCLUDE that in the interest of the common larger practice, it is POOR POLITICS for the Docs to attempt to Manipulate these coverage lines/boundaries - as they simply don't want to risk getting "remooved from the teet"!!!. So they encourage their docs not to involve.
YOU... May be a partner in a small venture attempting to Self-Manage as Too invasive with consideration of Over diffusion of CONTROL, as Trying to do TOO DAMN MUCH, OR to Control areas you are not Professionally trained. Worse you are encouraged to hire incompetents which will allow you to fester this ill fated attempt at CONTROL. Worse, your PERSONAL Interaction is Presenting to carrier ultimately as one TRYING to tweek the $ystem, and being small - tus pissing off the POWER HOUSE... In Short, Your flava is easily sniffed out by them and obstacles are constantly tossed your way TILL YA BREAK... Perhaps I can get you a deal with the above listed vendor...
ON a Side note my wife is making me a cock ring with the rubber band bracelet making kit (Rainbow Loom) we got for the kidz. Its an "innovation award winner - per the box)... LOL I'm gonna have to go now as I have some Field Testing to do..
)(The Real Reason I replied in my second to last paragraph if you want to skip the cheap shots)
If you are having this much trouble getting claims processed, you either have a lot of odd conditions going on, OR - The reason you have (4) billing associates is because they are ALL INCOMPETENT IMBECILES (thank God I started using Google which offers spell checking - But has is SPOILED MY FLAVOR?!!?- LOL) which have slid under "The Radar of Competency" which is most likely to occur within a Financially Flourishing Industry. I'm Guessin you are not directly affiliated with any Major Hospitals as "On-Campus" or "financially Proximate".. The BAIN of any good hearted small practice trying to make it in a cruel $ World
.Personally, and with experience in past large group plans as BC/BS related, I have never really had any issues getting fair care for the health issues I have had to deal with up to early 40's. I would say I have an "average healthy background to date THOUGH..." So may not be a full assessment of course... But I figure the Medical Billing Process is POLITICAL to some degree, and well as and ART FORM(which would explain YOUR Frustration to some degree too.. LOL
)I have typically been able to go to my own chosen specialist with no reprisal from BC/BS, and no hubbub from the particular servicing medical provider. I ACTUALLY attribute this to these offices have successfully astute BILLING DEPARTMENTS... These are technicians that understand PROCEDURE CODE vs. DIAGNOSIS CODE as it relates to Invoiced patient treatment. I suspect the FAILURE of Medical offices and providing establishments is a FAILURE OF PROPER LIAISON BETWEEN Practice Management, Office Financial Management, and the Physicians checking the "yellow sheet"... I also live in an area with a large older and ILL-for-Other-Reason Population - which may lend much experience to the offices round here, GEOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING as related to DEMOGRAPHICS. This MAY also DEFINE ACTUARIAL CARRIER EXPECTATIONS thus IMPACTING Claim Handling Protocol for the area in specific (your town)...
It should be noted the Service Provider Managing Offices are utilizing MEDICAL BILLING IT PLATFORMS which are CRITICAL in EFFECTIVE INVOICING and Patient Billing Process. (http://www.thessigroup.com/aboutus.aspx) is a major player in this market.. The companies products and services may DEFINE how astute your finance department needs to actually be to succeed...
WHAT SHOCKS ME FURTHER, is the degree of IGNORANCE that Physicians actually MAINTAIN with regard to policy coverages as they apply (again, poor liaison with office management/Practice directive failure). This can only be a DIRECT END RESULT OF MAKING SOO MUCH G.D. MONEY THAT THE INDUSTRY CANT EVEN STOP TO COUNT IT....! I speculate the work load on docs is kept at the level high enough to keep them from even poking their noses into insurance coverage, and with intent. After all, we would not want to piss off our Patient insurance providing vendors and get on the SHIT LIST now would YOU...!!!
** My Suspicion and understanding the personality which you portray here (be it real or not, but as example), is that you WOULD have a good understanding of coverage to a general degree. In fact better that many docs, and due to your superior MEMORY Skills as well as your ABILITY TO IDENTIFY PERTINENT ISSUES CLEARLY. Your Failure would be the inability to operate within the lines. AND WORSE, you might even potentially "Press/Test the system in place" as "Provocation by Idealism", as well as "Psychological Literal Construct Confinement Issues" ( I could help with that you know...
;)) You MAY Have even created a CONDITION of CONUNDRUM within your office and practice as a result of all this which is further dementing the demented you are employing...!?? There are MANY REASONS one hand never sees the other one in your profession. But Convenient KAddeeraKZ are becoming a Questionable Luxury theze days aren't they?? ( I had to train my spell check to like thoze - LOL)POINT - I would have suspected all along that Physicians are extremely astute at policy coverage and ACTUAL Claim disposition by carriers. HOWEVER, and after Polling enough of them - I am starting to REALLY Believe they are NOT..! After all, this would render medical doctors the ULTIMATE CLAIM ADJUSTERS now wouldn't it? Not P&C, Not Auto, Not Work Comp, Not Even Life as Annuity, - BUT AS DETERMINANTS OF WHETHER A PERSON LIVES OR DIES and as a SINGLE PERSONS DECISION. Its once thing to decide where a home gets a new roof, and another to negotiate what a Finger is worth in a given accident with a negligent party involved, State laws even determine is a worker gets paid, HOW MUCH, and If he has to "yell OUch" on the job with witnesses... But the medical field pertaining to INSURANCE is of a MUCH MORE PROFOUND IMPLICATION - LIFE and Quality there of...! HOWEVER, I am beginning to CONCLUDE that in the interest of the common larger practice, it is POOR POLITICS for the Docs to attempt to Manipulate these coverage lines/boundaries - as they simply don't want to risk getting "remooved from the teet"!!!. So they encourage their docs not to involve.
YOU... May be a partner in a small venture attempting to Self-Manage as Too invasive with consideration of Over diffusion of CONTROL, as Trying to do TOO DAMN MUCH, OR to Control areas you are not Professionally trained. Worse you are encouraged to hire incompetents which will allow you to fester this ill fated attempt at CONTROL. Worse, your PERSONAL Interaction is Presenting to carrier ultimately as one TRYING to tweek the $ystem, and being small - tus pissing off the POWER HOUSE... In Short, Your flava is easily sniffed out by them and obstacles are constantly tossed your way TILL YA BREAK... Perhaps I can get you a deal with the above listed vendor...
ON a Side note my wife is making me a cock ring with the rubber band bracelet making kit (Rainbow Loom) we got for the kidz. Its an "innovation award winner - per the box)... LOL I'm gonna have to go now as I have some Field Testing to do..
Got that right Z! Can anyone tell me what the fuck insurance companies do for patients EXCEPT CONTROL patient ACCESS to HEALTH CARE?
Not a damn thing.
They have been the bane for patients ever since they became fully vested in the 1970s. Moreover not one of these insurance industries "shareholders" whose pockets are lined with money provide any DIRECT or INDIRECT service to patients.
Hell no they pocket profits off the misery of patients!
DON'T believe me? Really!!!
Tell me ONE THING your health insurance has done for you lately except; delay diagnostic studies, provider payments FOR MONTHS, limit more advanced or even experimental treatment for patients with rare conditions, refuse access to a timely diagnosis, etc, etc, etc.
I'm so FUCKING TIRED of having to hire FOUR office staff whom are deemed PROFICIENT in health insurance (including Medicaid and Medicare) billing to ensure ANY payment.
Consequently I gladly perform 30% of my services for nothing. (ALL have very limited access to out patient primary care and unfortunately many are athletes)
I've devoted my lifestyle my family and a lot of money to my chosen profession BUT the last thing I'll do, is line the pockets of shareholders!
Ok, it could only get worse if the government does it!
Why? Because they have no interest in controlling costs as does the private sector.
Those are factoids from any government entitlement, the beast GROWS and GROWS.
The answer! Government must set certain standards which the private sector abides by such as provider payment in 60 days, immediate approval of conventional studies and treatments, etc.
Hey guys for those who believe Government should and must stay out of private health care, your opinion would have been reversed quite readily as little as two years ago.
That is before then, if you had a existing condition prostate cancer for example, and changed jobs for whatever reason, coverage would have been DENIED for at least ONE YEAR!
Yep now your tainted goods and have a PRE-EXISTING condition. Shit that's like purchasing a car with a malfunction, it will cost THEM from the beginning!!!!
A better wait and see approach seems more prudent. I mean crap death eliminates the need for insurance. That's how these dip shits think because at the end of the day it's all about THE MONEY.
Many a politician has argued "health care" until they are blue in the face but unless they LIVE IT as physicians and SEE IT as patients they will never understand the problems inherent in our current system and those remedies more likely to be effective or ineffective or flat out destructive.
My daily rant is now complete!
Jim
Last edited:
"Ok, it could only get worse if the government does it!
Why? Because they have no interest in controlling costs as does the private sector."
Bullshit
Also copay of Rx is $8/mth no matter what the drug. Woulda been a lot less if the repugnicans hadnt forbade the VA from buying drugs from overseas.
Its all about the money.
Comparison of VA Cost to Medicare Reimbursement
The most thorough study comparing the relative cost of VA provided care was an HSR&D study that compared actual VA costs at six VA medical centers to the hypothetical fee-for-service payments for the same services that would have been paid by Medicare. The final report (Nugent, 2004) found that VA was providing care at a lower cost. Details from this study appeared as a series of papers in a special supplement of Medical Care in 2003. The overview paper for the papers in this supplement is cited below (Nugent, 2003). The supplement includes papers with detailed comparisons for difference services, including acute hospital stays, outpatient care, nursing home, and other types of care. FAQ B7 describes Medicare and VA cost data, the differences between these data, and what can be done to make them more comparable.
HERC - Resources - FAQ - B6. How do VA costs compare to the cost of non-VA providers?
Why? Because they have no interest in controlling costs as does the private sector."
Bullshit
Also copay of Rx is $8/mth no matter what the drug. Woulda been a lot less if the repugnicans hadnt forbade the VA from buying drugs from overseas.
Its all about the money.
Comparison of VA Cost to Medicare Reimbursement
The most thorough study comparing the relative cost of VA provided care was an HSR&D study that compared actual VA costs at six VA medical centers to the hypothetical fee-for-service payments for the same services that would have been paid by Medicare. The final report (Nugent, 2004) found that VA was providing care at a lower cost. Details from this study appeared as a series of papers in a special supplement of Medical Care in 2003. The overview paper for the papers in this supplement is cited below (Nugent, 2003). The supplement includes papers with detailed comparisons for difference services, including acute hospital stays, outpatient care, nursing home, and other types of care. FAQ B7 describes Medicare and VA cost data, the differences between these data, and what can be done to make them more comparable.
HERC - Resources - FAQ - B6. How do VA costs compare to the cost of non-VA providers?
I dont know if there are any tea party on meso. But you could start a thread and educate the members here.
Tea bag test #1: I think Ted Cruze is a good person.
Tea bag test #2: If I work hard I will become a millionaire.
Tea bag test #3: The United States is the most moral country that has ever existed.
Tea bag test #4: Natural selection and global warming are a crock of shit.
Tea bag test #5: The earth is 5000 years old.
If your answer to any of the above is yes do the world a favor and buy a gun and blow your brains out for the sake of humanity. [
)] Not really.
I always thought the practice of "tea-bagging" was resting one's NUT SAK on a comrade's forehead whilst allowing your testicles to descend and lay across the bridge of his drunken and passed out nose whilst POSING proudly for a PHOTO OPP... And speaking of photos. I'm gathering a General Avatar Theme from you. And based on the amount of Rope & Harness type work you do on that house; You EIther...:
1) Love high places with Preference to trees and rooftops.
2) Have figured out that WOMEN CAN'T take the stress of high risk scenarios, and thus she don't come out when you are up there.
3) Are old enough to INTENTIONALLY INCREASE the INHERENT LIFE RIsk AS DEATH WISH (**My preferred method is to continue to use a folding ladder with a defective "clicker" on one side - LOL)
4) Have a theory that "testing the fortitude of Yur NUTZ" in a temporary vise MAY Stimulate T Production as LImited Basis Stimulus Negative.
5) COULD Possibly get up in those trees Naked @ Night for a RUSH as well (Buzz Dependent).
6) Have Superior "Cloaking & Dis-information" skills, and you are really a Chinese Steroid Cartel working from a S. American Location as a Front. Your REAL NAME is Xinghuatoi translated as "Hector" - LOL
7) Are simply expressing that owning your own wood and comp Home is a MAINTENANCE NIGHTMARE of PERPETUAL FRUSTRATION.
And speaking of photos. I'm gathering a General Avatar Theme from you. And based on the amount of Rope & Harness type work you do on that house; You EIther...:1) Love high places with Preference to trees and rooftops.
2) Have figured out that WOMEN CAN'T take the stress of high risk scenarios, and thus she don't come out when you are up there.
3) Are old enough to INTENTIONALLY INCREASE the INHERENT LIFE RIsk AS DEATH WISH (**My preferred method is to continue to use a folding ladder with a defective "clicker" on one side - LOL)
4) Have a theory that "testing the fortitude of Yur NUTZ" in a temporary vise MAY Stimulate T Production as LImited Basis Stimulus Negative.
5) COULD Possibly get up in those trees Naked @ Night for a RUSH as well (Buzz Dependent).
6) Have Superior "Cloaking & Dis-information" skills, and you are really a Chinese Steroid Cartel working from a S. American Location as a Front. Your REAL NAME is Xinghuatoi translated as "Hector" - LOL
7) Are simply expressing that owning your own wood and comp Home is a MAINTENANCE NIGHTMARE of PERPETUAL FRUSTRATION.
Tea bag test #1: I think Ted Cruze is a good person.
Tea bag test #2: If I work hard I will become a millionaire.
Tea bag test #3: The United States is the most moral country that has ever existed.
Tea bag test #4: Natural selection and global warming are a crock of shit.
Tea bag test #5: The earth is 5000 years old.
If your answer to any of the above is yes do the world a favor and buy a gun and blow your brains out for the sake of humanity. [
Last edited:
nuncaquite
New Member
tea bag test #1: I think ted cruze is a good person.
Tea bag test #2: If i work hard i will become a millionaire.
Tea bag test #3: The united states is the most moral country that has ever existed.
Tea bag test #4: Natural selection and global warming are a crock of shit.
Tea bag test #5: The earth is 5000 years old.
If your answer to any of the above is yes do the world a favor and buy a gun and blow your brains out for the sake of humanity. [
You learn from the best[)] Do you really want this kind of person making decisions on health care? Did you hear this guys comment on the children with cancer? This is one of the faces of evil. This ACA mess kinda reminds me of a quote I once heard "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" How Did Harry Reid Become Rich?
(Mark Noonan) – According to Open Secrets, Senator Harry Reid has a minimum net worth of $2,827,056.00, a maximum worth of $6,307,999.00 and an average net worth of $4,567,527.00. Why all the discrepancies?
Because our leaders, much as they set up campaign finance laws to protect themselves, have set up their disclosure requirements to hide things. They don’t really want us to know how much they have and thus the millions of dollars of variance possible in Reid’s fortune.
Still, taking that nearly $4.6 million average for Reid seems fair – if it’s really off, then it’s up to Reid to correct the record. And that is quite a rise for a man who endlessly reminds us was born poor.
I’m pretty sure I’m safe in saying that for everyone reading this, that is quite a lot of money. In fact, more money than any of us are likely to (a) ever have or (b) even know what to do with, if we did have it. Lots of people start poor, work hard, and get rich – in the private sector.
The problem, for Harry Reid, is that since he graduated college, there hasn’t been a lot of time outside of government service. Reid was elected to the State Assembly in 1966 and in the past 43 years (when Reid went from 27 years old to 70 – and your humble correspondent went from 2 to 45), the only gap in public service was the two years in the mid-70?s between his term as Lt. Governor and his service on the Nevada Gaming Commission. And during that time he ran for Mayor of Las Vegas, leaving little time to build up a fortune in the private sector.
Right now, as Senate Majority Leader, Reid earns $193,400.00 per year – a back-bencher earns $174,000.00.
Reid has been earning that 193 grand for a few years, but when he first entered the Senate in 1987, I think the Senate salary was about $125,000.00 per year. In order to build up $4.6 million dollars over the past 43 years, Reid would have had to sock aside – out of various government salaries – nearly $107,000.00 per year.
Does anyone want to believe that Reid has done this? That he has saved his government-salary pennies (including for all those years when he made far less than even $107,000.00 per year) and built up his fortune just out of the money we know he’s been earning since he entered public office? And what if Reid’s fortune is actually closer to the higher estimate of $6.3 million?
It’s just not credible that Reid has done this just out of his government salary. The man has raised 5 kids, through college. His various government salaries were enough to live on but how, with all the expenses, did Reid build up so much money? What did he do? How did he do it?
How does a man who’s “product” is legislation make so much money that he can build up more than four and a half million dollars of net worth?
Its small wonder that Reid believes in the power of government to make things good. They’ve certainly made things good for him. He’s risen from the son of a hard-rock miner to a fabulously wealthy Senate Majority Leader. Being in government, for Reid, has been like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He hasn’t had to work for money, but he’s managed to acquire quite a lot of it.
But is this what we want? Do we want people who enter politics poor and leave it very rich? Nothing wrong with a poor man being in government. Nothing wrong with being a rich man in government. But to start poor and end rich while never doing anything in the private sector is a clear indicator of trading on one’s position.
And this is why Reid wants so desperately to remain in power – because it’s all he’s got.
The whole of Reid’s position in life has been built on his government office. Wealth, power and prestige, for Reid, are dependent upon his remaining in office. To lose office is to lose the ability to, say, build up another four million dollars. It’s not like Reid has any marketable skills for the private sector – even his skill as a lawyer is probably rusty as he hasn’t done any real legal practice since the 1960?s.
Reid, out of the Senate, is a nobody.
Reid is asking us to entrust him with 6 more years in the United States Senate. Before we do such a thing, it is fair for us to ask: “Reid, how did you become a rich man?”
All evidence indicates that Reid has enriched himself off his government position and unless we get evidence, from Reid, to the contrary, we daren’t re-elect him. Nevada is in trouble and we need leaders who are for us, not just living off us.
(
View attachment 11568 You learn from the best[
How Did Harry Reid Become Rich?
(Mark Noonan) – According to Open Secrets, Senator Harry Reid has a minimum net worth of $2,827,056.00, a maximum worth of $6,307,999.00 and an average net worth of $4,567,527.00. Why all the discrepancies?
Because our leaders, much as they set up campaign finance laws to protect themselves, have set up their disclosure requirements to hide things. They don’t really want us to know how much they have and thus the millions of dollars of variance possible in Reid’s fortune.
Still, taking that nearly $4.6 million average for Reid seems fair – if it’s really off, then it’s up to Reid to correct the record. And that is quite a rise for a man who endlessly reminds us was born poor.
I’m pretty sure I’m safe in saying that for everyone reading this, that is quite a lot of money. In fact, more money than any of us are likely to (a) ever have or (b) even know what to do with, if we did have it. Lots of people start poor, work hard, and get rich – in the private sector.
The problem, for Harry Reid, is that since he graduated college, there hasn’t been a lot of time outside of government service. Reid was elected to the State Assembly in 1966 and in the past 43 years (when Reid went from 27 years old to 70 – and your humble correspondent went from 2 to 45), the only gap in public service was the two years in the mid-70?s between his term as Lt. Governor and his service on the Nevada Gaming Commission. And during that time he ran for Mayor of Las Vegas, leaving little time to build up a fortune in the private sector.
Right now, as Senate Majority Leader, Reid earns $193,400.00 per year – a back-bencher earns $174,000.00.
Reid has been earning that 193 grand for a few years, but when he first entered the Senate in 1987, I think the Senate salary was about $125,000.00 per year. In order to build up $4.6 million dollars over the past 43 years, Reid would have had to sock aside – out of various government salaries – nearly $107,000.00 per year.
Does anyone want to believe that Reid has done this? That he has saved his government-salary pennies (including for all those years when he made far less than even $107,000.00 per year) and built up his fortune just out of the money we know he’s been earning since he entered public office? And what if Reid’s fortune is actually closer to the higher estimate of $6.3 million?
It’s just not credible that Reid has done this just out of his government salary. The man has raised 5 kids, through college. His various government salaries were enough to live on but how, with all the expenses, did Reid build up so much money? What did he do? How did he do it?
How does a man who’s “product” is legislation make so much money that he can build up more than four and a half million dollars of net worth?
Its small wonder that Reid believes in the power of government to make things good. They’ve certainly made things good for him. He’s risen from the son of a hard-rock miner to a fabulously wealthy Senate Majority Leader. Being in government, for Reid, has been like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He hasn’t had to work for money, but he’s managed to acquire quite a lot of it.
But is this what we want? Do we want people who enter politics poor and leave it very rich? Nothing wrong with a poor man being in government. Nothing wrong with being a rich man in government. But to start poor and end rich while never doing anything in the private sector is a clear indicator of trading on one’s position.
And this is why Reid wants so desperately to remain in power – because it’s all he’s got.
The whole of Reid’s position in life has been built on his government office. Wealth, power and prestige, for Reid, are dependent upon his remaining in office. To lose office is to lose the ability to, say, build up another four million dollars. It’s not like Reid has any marketable skills for the private sector – even his skill as a lawyer is probably rusty as he hasn’t done any real legal practice since the 1960?s.
Reid, out of the Senate, is a nobody.
Reid is asking us to entrust him with 6 more years in the United States Senate. Before we do such a thing, it is fair for us to ask: “Reid, how did you become a rich man?”
All evidence indicates that Reid has enriched himself off his government position and unless we get evidence, from Reid, to the contrary, we daren’t re-elect him. Nevada is in trouble and we need leaders who are for us, not just living off us.
(
If you think a net worth of $4.5M by age 70 is HUGE and proof he's up to no good....you have to get your shit together. I've read stories about school teachers having a net worth of $1M by retirement and postmasters $1.5M. The power of no debt, a modest lifestyle and compound interest/investing can get someone making six figures there easily.
That said they are ALL crooks...I just don't see THIS as the reason.
A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/u...-months-in-the-planning.html?pagewanted=print
October 5, 2013
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and MIKE McINTIRE
¶WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.
¶Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.
¶It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.
¶“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said one coalition member, Michael A. Needham, who runs Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.”
¶Last week the country witnessed the fallout from that strategy: a standoff that has shuttered much of the federal bureaucracy and unsettled the nation.
¶To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known.
¶With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe that the public is behind them. Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a law they despise.
¶A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.”
¶The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.
¶The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.
¶The groups have also sought to pressure vulnerable Republican members of Congress with scorecards keeping track of their health care votes; have burned faux “Obamacare cards” on college campuses; and have distributed scripts for phone calls to Congressional offices, sample letters to editors and Twitter and Facebook offerings for followers to present as their own.
¶One sample Twitter offering — “Obamacare is a train wreck” — is a common refrain for Speaker John A. Boehner.
¶As the defunding movement picked up steam among outside advocates, Republicans who sounded tepid became targets. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee dedicated to “electing true conservatives,” ran radio advertisements against three Republican incumbents.
¶Heritage Action ran critical Internet advertisements in the districts of 100 Republican lawmakers who had failed to sign a letter by a North Carolina freshman, Representative Mark Meadows, urging Mr. Boehner to take up the defunding cause.
¶“They’ve been hugely influential,” said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “When else in our history has a freshman member of Congress from North Carolina been able to round up a gang of 80 that’s essentially ground the government to a halt?”
¶On Capitol Hill, the advocates found willing partners in Tea Party conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if they do not get their way on spending issues. This time they said they were so alarmed by the health law that they were willing to risk a shutdown over it. (“This is exactly what the public wants,” Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, said on the eve of the shutdown.)
¶Despite Mrs. Bachmann’s comments, not all of the groups have been on board with the defunding campaign. Some, like the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity, which spent $5.5 million on health care television advertisements over the past three months, are more focused on sowing public doubts about the law. But all have a common goal, which is to cripple a measure that Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and leader of the defunding effort, has likened to a horror movie.
¶“We view this as a long-term effort,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. He said his group expected to spend “tens of millions” of dollars on a “multifront effort” that includes working to prevent states from expanding Medicaid under the law. The group’s goal is not to defund the law.
¶“We want to see this law repealed,” Mr. Phillips said.
¶A Familiar Tactic
¶The crowd was raucous at the Hilton Anatole, just north of downtown Dallas, when Mr. Needham’s group, Heritage Action, arrived on a Tuesday in August for the second stop on a nine-city “Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour.” Nearly 1,000 people turned out to hear two stars of the Tea Party movement: Mr. Cruz, and Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who runs the Heritage Foundation.
¶“You’re here because now is the single best time we have to defund Obamacare,” declared Mr. Cruz, who would go on to rail against the law on the Senate floor in September with a monologue that ran for 21 hours. “This is a fight we can win.”
¶Although Mr. Cruz is new to the Senate, the tactic of defunding in Washington is not. For years, Congress has banned the use of certain federal money to pay for abortions, except in the case of incest and rape, by attaching the so-called Hyde Amendment to spending bills.
¶After the health law passed in 2010, Todd Tiahrt, then a Republican congressman from Kansas, proposed defunding bits and pieces of it. He said he spoke to Mr. Boehner’s staff about the idea while the Supreme Court, which upheld the central provision, was weighing the law’s constitutionality.
¶“There just wasn’t the appetite for it at the time,” Mr. Tiahrt said in an interview. “They thought, we don’t need to worry about it because the Supreme Court will strike it down.”
¶But the idea of using the appropriations process to defund an entire federal program, particularly one as far-reaching as the health care overhaul, raised the stakes considerably. In an interview, Mr. DeMint, who left the Senate to join the Heritage Foundation in January, said he had been thinking about it since the law’s passage, in part because Republican leaders were not more aggressive.
¶“They’ve been through a series of C.R.s and debt limits,” Mr. DeMint said, referring to continuing resolutions on spending, “and all the time there was discussion of ‘O.K., we’re not going to fight the Obamacare fight, we’ll do it next time.’ The conservatives who ran in 2010 promising to repeal it kept hearing, ‘This is not the right time to fight this battle.’ ”
¶Mr. DeMint is hardly alone in his distaste for the health law, or his willingness to do something about it. In the three years since Mr. Obama signed the health measure, Tea Party-inspired groups have mobilized, aided by a financing network that continues to grow, both in its complexity and the sheer amount of money that flows through it.
¶A review of tax records, campaign finance reports and corporate filings shows that hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised and spent since 2012 by organizations, many of them loosely connected, leading opposition to the measure.
¶One of the biggest sources of conservative money is Freedom Partners, a tax-exempt “business league” that claims more than 200 members, each of whom pays at least $100,000 in dues. The group’s board is headed by a longtime executive of Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the Koch brothers, who were among the original financiers of the Tea Party movement. The Kochs declined to comment.
¶While Freedom Partners has financed organizations that are pushing to defund the law, like Heritage Action and Tea Party Patriots, Freedom Partners has not advocated that. A spokesman for the group, James Davis, said it was more focused on “educating Americans around the country on the negative impacts of Obamacare.”
¶The largest recipient of Freedom Partners cash — about $115 million — was the Center to Protect Patient Rights, according to the groups’ latest tax filings. Run by a political consultant with ties to the Kochs and listing an Arizona post office box for its address, the center appears to be little more than a clearinghouse for donations to still more groups, including American Commitment and the 60 Plus Association, both ardent foes of the health care law.
¶American Commitment and 60 Plus were among a handful of groups calling themselves the “Repeal Coalition” that sent a letter in August urging Republican leaders in the House and the Senate to insist “at a minimum” in a one-year delay of carrying out the health care law as part of any budget deal. Another group, the Conservative 50 Plus Alliance, delivered a defunding petition with 68,700 signatures to the Senate.
¶In the fight to shape public opinion, conservatives face well-organized liberal foes. Enroll America, a nonprofit group allied with the Obama White House, is waging a campaign to persuade millions of the uninsured to buy coverage. The law’s supporters are also getting huge assistance from the insurance industry, which is expected to spend $1 billion on advertising to help sell its plans on the exchanges.
¶“It is David versus Goliath,” said Mr. Phillips of Americans for Prosperity.
¶But conservatives are finding that with relatively small advertising buys, they can make a splash. Generation Opportunity, the youth-oriented outfit behind the “Creepy Uncle Sam” ads, is spending $750,000 on that effort, aimed at dissuading young people — a cohort critical to the success of the health care overhaul — from signing up for insurance under the new law.
¶ The group receives substantial backing from Freedom Partners and appears ready to expand. Recently, Generation Opportunity moved into spacious new offices in Arlington, Va., where exposed ductwork, Ikea chairs and a Ping-Pong table give off the feel of a Silicon Valley start-up.
¶Its executive director, Evan Feinberg, a 29-year-old former Capitol Hill aide and onetime instructor for a leadership institute founded by Charles Koch, said there would be more Uncle Sam ads, coupled with college campus visits, this fall. Two other groups, FreedomWorks, with its “Burn Your Obamacare Card” protests, and Young Americans for Liberty, are also running campus events.
¶“A lot of folks have asked us, ‘Are we trying to sabotage the law?’ ” Mr. Feinberg said in an interview last week. His answer echoes the Freedom Partners philosophy: “Our goal is to educate and empower young people.”
¶Critical Timing
¶But many on the Republican right wanted to do more.
¶Mr. Meese’s low-profile coalition, the Conservative Action Project, which seeks to find common ground among leaders of an array of fiscally and socially conservative groups, was looking ahead to last Tuesday, when the new online health insurance marketplaces, called exchanges, were set to open. If the law took full effect as planned, many conservatives feared, it would be nearly impossible to repeal — even if a Republican president were elected in 2016.
¶“I think people realized that with the imminent beginning of Obamacare, that this was a critical time to make every effort to stop something,” Mr. Meese said in an interview. (He has since stepped down as the coalition’s chairman and has been succeeded by David McIntosh, a former congressman from Indiana.)
¶The defunding idea, Mr. Meese said, was “a logical strategy.” The idea drew broad support. Fiscal conservatives like Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, signed on to the blueprint. So did social and religious conservatives, like the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition.
¶The document set a target date: March 27, when a continuing resolution allowing the government to function was to expire. Its message was direct: “Conservatives should not approve a C.R. unless it defunds Obamacare.”
¶But the March date came and went without a defunding struggle. In the Senate, Mr. Cruz and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, talked up the defunding idea, but it went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled chamber. In the House, Mr. Boehner wanted to concentrate instead on locking in the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, and Tea Party lawmakers followed his lead. Outside advocates were unhappy but held their fire.
¶“We didn’t cause any trouble,” Mr. Chocola said.
¶Yet by summer, with an August recess looming and another temporary spending bill expiring at the end of September, the groups were done waiting.
¶“I remember talking to reporters at the end of July, and they said, ‘This didn’t go anywhere,’ ” Mr. Needham recalled. “What all of us felt at the time was, this was never going to be a strategy that was going to win inside the Beltway. It was going to be a strategy where, during August, people would go home and hear from their constituents, saying: ‘You pledged to do everything you could to stop Obamacare. Will you defund it?’ ”
¶Heritage Action, which has trained 6,000 people it calls sentinels around the country, sent them to open meetings and other events to confront their elected representatives. Its “Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour,” which began in Fayetteville, Ark., on Aug. 19 and ended 10 days later in Wilmington, Del., drew hundreds at every stop.
¶The Senate Conservatives Fund, led by Mr. DeMint when he was in the Senate, put up a Web site in July called dontfundobamacare.com and ran television ads featuring Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee urging people to tell their representatives not to fund the law.
¶When Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told a reporter that defunding the law was “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” the fund bought a radio ad to attack him. Two other Republican senators up for re-election in 2014, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were also targeted. Both face Tea Party challengers.
¶In Washington, Tea Party Patriots, which created the defunding tool kit, set up a Web site, exemptamerica.com, to promote a rally last month showcasing many of the Republicans in Congress whom Democrats — and a number of fellow Republicans — say are most responsible for the shutdown.
¶While conservatives believe that the public will back them on defunding, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority — 57 percent — disapproves of cutting off funding as a way to stop the law.
¶Last week, with the health care exchanges open for business and a number of prominent Republicans complaining that the “Defund Obamacare” strategy was politically damaging and pointless, Mr. Needham of Heritage Action said he felt good about what the groups had accomplished.
¶“It really was a groundswell,” he said, “that changed Washington from the outside in.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/u...-months-in-the-planning.html?pagewanted=print
October 5, 2013
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and MIKE McINTIRE
¶WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.
¶Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.
¶It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.
¶“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said one coalition member, Michael A. Needham, who runs Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.”
¶Last week the country witnessed the fallout from that strategy: a standoff that has shuttered much of the federal bureaucracy and unsettled the nation.
¶To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known.
¶With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe that the public is behind them. Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a law they despise.
¶A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.”
¶The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.
¶The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.
¶The groups have also sought to pressure vulnerable Republican members of Congress with scorecards keeping track of their health care votes; have burned faux “Obamacare cards” on college campuses; and have distributed scripts for phone calls to Congressional offices, sample letters to editors and Twitter and Facebook offerings for followers to present as their own.
¶One sample Twitter offering — “Obamacare is a train wreck” — is a common refrain for Speaker John A. Boehner.
¶As the defunding movement picked up steam among outside advocates, Republicans who sounded tepid became targets. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee dedicated to “electing true conservatives,” ran radio advertisements against three Republican incumbents.
¶Heritage Action ran critical Internet advertisements in the districts of 100 Republican lawmakers who had failed to sign a letter by a North Carolina freshman, Representative Mark Meadows, urging Mr. Boehner to take up the defunding cause.
¶“They’ve been hugely influential,” said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “When else in our history has a freshman member of Congress from North Carolina been able to round up a gang of 80 that’s essentially ground the government to a halt?”
¶On Capitol Hill, the advocates found willing partners in Tea Party conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if they do not get their way on spending issues. This time they said they were so alarmed by the health law that they were willing to risk a shutdown over it. (“This is exactly what the public wants,” Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, said on the eve of the shutdown.)
¶Despite Mrs. Bachmann’s comments, not all of the groups have been on board with the defunding campaign. Some, like the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity, which spent $5.5 million on health care television advertisements over the past three months, are more focused on sowing public doubts about the law. But all have a common goal, which is to cripple a measure that Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and leader of the defunding effort, has likened to a horror movie.
¶“We view this as a long-term effort,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. He said his group expected to spend “tens of millions” of dollars on a “multifront effort” that includes working to prevent states from expanding Medicaid under the law. The group’s goal is not to defund the law.
¶“We want to see this law repealed,” Mr. Phillips said.
¶A Familiar Tactic
¶The crowd was raucous at the Hilton Anatole, just north of downtown Dallas, when Mr. Needham’s group, Heritage Action, arrived on a Tuesday in August for the second stop on a nine-city “Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour.” Nearly 1,000 people turned out to hear two stars of the Tea Party movement: Mr. Cruz, and Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who runs the Heritage Foundation.
¶“You’re here because now is the single best time we have to defund Obamacare,” declared Mr. Cruz, who would go on to rail against the law on the Senate floor in September with a monologue that ran for 21 hours. “This is a fight we can win.”
¶Although Mr. Cruz is new to the Senate, the tactic of defunding in Washington is not. For years, Congress has banned the use of certain federal money to pay for abortions, except in the case of incest and rape, by attaching the so-called Hyde Amendment to spending bills.
¶After the health law passed in 2010, Todd Tiahrt, then a Republican congressman from Kansas, proposed defunding bits and pieces of it. He said he spoke to Mr. Boehner’s staff about the idea while the Supreme Court, which upheld the central provision, was weighing the law’s constitutionality.
¶“There just wasn’t the appetite for it at the time,” Mr. Tiahrt said in an interview. “They thought, we don’t need to worry about it because the Supreme Court will strike it down.”
¶But the idea of using the appropriations process to defund an entire federal program, particularly one as far-reaching as the health care overhaul, raised the stakes considerably. In an interview, Mr. DeMint, who left the Senate to join the Heritage Foundation in January, said he had been thinking about it since the law’s passage, in part because Republican leaders were not more aggressive.
¶“They’ve been through a series of C.R.s and debt limits,” Mr. DeMint said, referring to continuing resolutions on spending, “and all the time there was discussion of ‘O.K., we’re not going to fight the Obamacare fight, we’ll do it next time.’ The conservatives who ran in 2010 promising to repeal it kept hearing, ‘This is not the right time to fight this battle.’ ”
¶Mr. DeMint is hardly alone in his distaste for the health law, or his willingness to do something about it. In the three years since Mr. Obama signed the health measure, Tea Party-inspired groups have mobilized, aided by a financing network that continues to grow, both in its complexity and the sheer amount of money that flows through it.
¶A review of tax records, campaign finance reports and corporate filings shows that hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised and spent since 2012 by organizations, many of them loosely connected, leading opposition to the measure.
¶One of the biggest sources of conservative money is Freedom Partners, a tax-exempt “business league” that claims more than 200 members, each of whom pays at least $100,000 in dues. The group’s board is headed by a longtime executive of Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the Koch brothers, who were among the original financiers of the Tea Party movement. The Kochs declined to comment.
¶While Freedom Partners has financed organizations that are pushing to defund the law, like Heritage Action and Tea Party Patriots, Freedom Partners has not advocated that. A spokesman for the group, James Davis, said it was more focused on “educating Americans around the country on the negative impacts of Obamacare.”
¶The largest recipient of Freedom Partners cash — about $115 million — was the Center to Protect Patient Rights, according to the groups’ latest tax filings. Run by a political consultant with ties to the Kochs and listing an Arizona post office box for its address, the center appears to be little more than a clearinghouse for donations to still more groups, including American Commitment and the 60 Plus Association, both ardent foes of the health care law.
¶American Commitment and 60 Plus were among a handful of groups calling themselves the “Repeal Coalition” that sent a letter in August urging Republican leaders in the House and the Senate to insist “at a minimum” in a one-year delay of carrying out the health care law as part of any budget deal. Another group, the Conservative 50 Plus Alliance, delivered a defunding petition with 68,700 signatures to the Senate.
¶In the fight to shape public opinion, conservatives face well-organized liberal foes. Enroll America, a nonprofit group allied with the Obama White House, is waging a campaign to persuade millions of the uninsured to buy coverage. The law’s supporters are also getting huge assistance from the insurance industry, which is expected to spend $1 billion on advertising to help sell its plans on the exchanges.
¶“It is David versus Goliath,” said Mr. Phillips of Americans for Prosperity.
¶But conservatives are finding that with relatively small advertising buys, they can make a splash. Generation Opportunity, the youth-oriented outfit behind the “Creepy Uncle Sam” ads, is spending $750,000 on that effort, aimed at dissuading young people — a cohort critical to the success of the health care overhaul — from signing up for insurance under the new law.
¶ The group receives substantial backing from Freedom Partners and appears ready to expand. Recently, Generation Opportunity moved into spacious new offices in Arlington, Va., where exposed ductwork, Ikea chairs and a Ping-Pong table give off the feel of a Silicon Valley start-up.
¶Its executive director, Evan Feinberg, a 29-year-old former Capitol Hill aide and onetime instructor for a leadership institute founded by Charles Koch, said there would be more Uncle Sam ads, coupled with college campus visits, this fall. Two other groups, FreedomWorks, with its “Burn Your Obamacare Card” protests, and Young Americans for Liberty, are also running campus events.
¶“A lot of folks have asked us, ‘Are we trying to sabotage the law?’ ” Mr. Feinberg said in an interview last week. His answer echoes the Freedom Partners philosophy: “Our goal is to educate and empower young people.”
¶Critical Timing
¶But many on the Republican right wanted to do more.
¶Mr. Meese’s low-profile coalition, the Conservative Action Project, which seeks to find common ground among leaders of an array of fiscally and socially conservative groups, was looking ahead to last Tuesday, when the new online health insurance marketplaces, called exchanges, were set to open. If the law took full effect as planned, many conservatives feared, it would be nearly impossible to repeal — even if a Republican president were elected in 2016.
¶“I think people realized that with the imminent beginning of Obamacare, that this was a critical time to make every effort to stop something,” Mr. Meese said in an interview. (He has since stepped down as the coalition’s chairman and has been succeeded by David McIntosh, a former congressman from Indiana.)
¶The defunding idea, Mr. Meese said, was “a logical strategy.” The idea drew broad support. Fiscal conservatives like Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, signed on to the blueprint. So did social and religious conservatives, like the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition.
¶The document set a target date: March 27, when a continuing resolution allowing the government to function was to expire. Its message was direct: “Conservatives should not approve a C.R. unless it defunds Obamacare.”
¶But the March date came and went without a defunding struggle. In the Senate, Mr. Cruz and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, talked up the defunding idea, but it went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled chamber. In the House, Mr. Boehner wanted to concentrate instead on locking in the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, and Tea Party lawmakers followed his lead. Outside advocates were unhappy but held their fire.
¶“We didn’t cause any trouble,” Mr. Chocola said.
¶Yet by summer, with an August recess looming and another temporary spending bill expiring at the end of September, the groups were done waiting.
¶“I remember talking to reporters at the end of July, and they said, ‘This didn’t go anywhere,’ ” Mr. Needham recalled. “What all of us felt at the time was, this was never going to be a strategy that was going to win inside the Beltway. It was going to be a strategy where, during August, people would go home and hear from their constituents, saying: ‘You pledged to do everything you could to stop Obamacare. Will you defund it?’ ”
¶Heritage Action, which has trained 6,000 people it calls sentinels around the country, sent them to open meetings and other events to confront their elected representatives. Its “Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour,” which began in Fayetteville, Ark., on Aug. 19 and ended 10 days later in Wilmington, Del., drew hundreds at every stop.
¶The Senate Conservatives Fund, led by Mr. DeMint when he was in the Senate, put up a Web site in July called dontfundobamacare.com and ran television ads featuring Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee urging people to tell their representatives not to fund the law.
¶When Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told a reporter that defunding the law was “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” the fund bought a radio ad to attack him. Two other Republican senators up for re-election in 2014, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were also targeted. Both face Tea Party challengers.
¶In Washington, Tea Party Patriots, which created the defunding tool kit, set up a Web site, exemptamerica.com, to promote a rally last month showcasing many of the Republicans in Congress whom Democrats — and a number of fellow Republicans — say are most responsible for the shutdown.
¶While conservatives believe that the public will back them on defunding, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority — 57 percent — disapproves of cutting off funding as a way to stop the law.
¶Last week, with the health care exchanges open for business and a number of prominent Republicans complaining that the “Defund Obamacare” strategy was politically damaging and pointless, Mr. Needham of Heritage Action said he felt good about what the groups had accomplished.
¶“It really was a groundswell,” he said, “that changed Washington from the outside in.”
I saw this posted in another forum, and thought it would open things up a bit here.
An open letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama,
You strike me as the sort of man who spends a lot of time staring at his own reflection. I wonder, what do you see when you gaze so admiringly at yourself? What image do you find in that mirror of yours? Let me guess: a graceful Greek god with a golden crown, draped in luxurious robes, perched on a giant, magnificent throne atop a mountain in the sky? You see a throng of angels singing your praises and masses of subservient peasants prostrated before you, trembling with fear and awe? You see a man who is more than a man, and a president who transcends the presidency; you see a historic figure of immortal importance?
Yeah, that’s what I thought, and I can’t blame you, Mr. President. By all accounts, you’ve always been an arrogant, haughty narcissist — and that was before you became president. Your supporters and your enemies may argue over whether you descended from heaven on the back of a Pegasus, or were birthed from the bowels of Hell to bring about a Biblical apocalypse, but they both agree on one thing: you are a figure of great significance and immense power. You are either the anti-Christ or the Second Coming, with no room for anything in-between. Surely, this talk might cause even a humble man to slip into a state of vanity and pride, so I can only imagine what it must do to a man such as yourself, already so aloof and so conceited.
That’s why I’m writing this letter. My impression of you is quite different, and it has only been solidified by your performance during this shutdown/Obamacare debate. I find you to be a very small man, Mr. President. Far from larger than life, you are petty, frivolous, pathetic; sneering and pompous but also trifling and narrow. I don’t mean to dismiss or underestimate the damage you have done to this nation — it has certainly been profound and lasting — but I want you to know that your legacy will not be one of grandeur and brilliance; it will be the legacy of a shameless, desperate bully. Both your opponents and your proponents hoist you up as a world leader with a grand vision, whether benevolent or malevolent. I, on the other hand, believe you have the vision of a temperamental two year old. You simply want to feel like you’re in control; you want to “win,” you want everybody in the room to pay attention to you, and you’ll stomp your feet and whine until you get your way. You govern like a coddled toddler; it’s inappropriate to pejoratively refer to you as a “dictator,” but only because it lends you a certain unwarranted credibility. I think you wish to be a dictator, but instead you’re just a bumbling bureaucrat; easily replaced and even more easily forgotten. You have the ethics of Genghis Khan, but the leadership skills of Michael Scott. This is why we are forced to witness the spectacle of, for instance, our president brazenly threatening to invade another nation for no reason, only to clumsily abandon the idea after being publicly spanked by Putin.
Your legacy, Mr. President, will be defined by small, shameful things, as your presidency has been primarily a succession of small, shameful things. The platitudes you spouted during your campaign — the theatrics, the pomp, the hype — have all faded. Replaced by the scheming partisan machinations that have come to define your tenure.
Every president has a moment that encapsulates their time in office; your moment, Mr. President, happened this week. Sure, future generations will look at you with mockery and scorn because of bigger scandals — Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives, Obamacare, the birth control mandate and your attacks on religious liberty, spying on journalists, arming terrorists overseas, Fast and Furious, the green energy scams, the bailouts, your support for infanticide, the billions you’ve given to the abortion industry, your cowardice in refusing to address the Gosnell murders, your reckless exploitation of the Zimmerman trial, the out of control deficit spending, your refusal to enforce immigration laws, the massive expansion of the Welfare State, the lies, the broken promises, etc — but I think, in an understated way, what you’ve done this week is a better microcosm of your entire reign.
I’m not just referring to the fact that you are peddling the lie that “Republicans” have “shutdown the government,” when, in fact, they have attempted to pass several bills that would fund the government. Mr. President, you tell these fables to the trained seals in the media and your voting base, but you know damn well that any American with a capacity for critical thought will roundly reject this absurd narrative. YOU have chosen to “shut down” the government because you have made Obamacare the ultimate priority. You have said, “Obamacare or nothing,” and then accused Republicans of being the “hostage takers.” They are holding the government hostage by trying to fund it? What a silly idea. But then, you are a silly, ridiculous president. Speaking of which, this takes us right to your defining moment: barricading memorials and monuments in a ploy to win an argument.
Comparatively insignificant when stacked up against your war crimes and constitutional infringements, but it is nonetheless an apt illustration. The Lincoln Memorial is just a giant statue. There isn’t any reason why people shouldn’t be able to look at a statue during a government shutdown. In past shutdowns, the memorials were open, with only the information centers closing down. The Lincoln Memorial has never been completely closed off from the public until now. You have decided to spend money to block and guard open-air monuments, when it would be cheaper, require less staff, and be less onerous to simply leave them be. Is this some sort of bizarre punitive measure against the American taxpayer?
Infamously, you even attempted to stop WW2 veterans from visiting the WW2 memorial. That memorial is mostly privately funded, and is open 24 hours a day. You SPENT MONEY to physically guard the monument from a group of elderly war veterans. This is truly unprecedented. We have had horrible presidents in the past, but none quite so shallow, cheap and contemptible. You tried to close down Mt. Vernon, which is privately funded, but had to settle for closing its parking lot — even though the parking lot requires no immediate on-going maintenance or surveillance from any federal workers. Did you have to shut down the Normandy cemetery and memorial? Are we saving money that way? I doubt it.
It’s the same game you played during the sequester, and it comes as no surprise to those of us who pay attention (which means it came as a surprise to a large number of people). Rather than leading like a statesman, you hide in the shadows; scheming, conniving, exploiting. You emerge only to make hyper-partisan speeches, with rhetoric best left to Democratic talking heads on afternoon cable news shows. Far from being a “new kind of politician” (as you were advertised), you are the most political politician this country has ever seen. You are political to your core, in your essence, at an atomic level, and so you are unable to offer any direction or clarity when the nation needs it most. Sometimes, Mr. President, the affairs of this nation require a man, not a politician, and it is during those times that you are especially useless. You don’t have any interest in fixing our present crisis because you’re too busy finding ways to keep a bus load of 90 year old war veterans from looking at a memorial.
Closing down parks, monuments and memorials just to score political points is hardly your most insidious deed, but it’s certainly one of your pettiest. That’s why it stands, ironically, as a monument of its own. If we ever build a statue of you, Mr. President, you won’t be triumphantly holding a flaming torch like Lady Liberty, or standing authoritatively with a look of determination, like the MLK memorial. No, it will be a statue of you pulling the wings off of a fly, or spitting in someone’s orange juice. It will show you in your essence, as monuments are meant to do. It will show you as a petulant, skulking, juvenile bully. It will you show you as you are.
And we’ll make sure it’s always open, especially during a government shut down.
Sincerely,
Matt Walsh
http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/10/03/an-open-letter-to-president-obama/
An open letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama,
You strike me as the sort of man who spends a lot of time staring at his own reflection. I wonder, what do you see when you gaze so admiringly at yourself? What image do you find in that mirror of yours? Let me guess: a graceful Greek god with a golden crown, draped in luxurious robes, perched on a giant, magnificent throne atop a mountain in the sky? You see a throng of angels singing your praises and masses of subservient peasants prostrated before you, trembling with fear and awe? You see a man who is more than a man, and a president who transcends the presidency; you see a historic figure of immortal importance?
Yeah, that’s what I thought, and I can’t blame you, Mr. President. By all accounts, you’ve always been an arrogant, haughty narcissist — and that was before you became president. Your supporters and your enemies may argue over whether you descended from heaven on the back of a Pegasus, or were birthed from the bowels of Hell to bring about a Biblical apocalypse, but they both agree on one thing: you are a figure of great significance and immense power. You are either the anti-Christ or the Second Coming, with no room for anything in-between. Surely, this talk might cause even a humble man to slip into a state of vanity and pride, so I can only imagine what it must do to a man such as yourself, already so aloof and so conceited.
That’s why I’m writing this letter. My impression of you is quite different, and it has only been solidified by your performance during this shutdown/Obamacare debate. I find you to be a very small man, Mr. President. Far from larger than life, you are petty, frivolous, pathetic; sneering and pompous but also trifling and narrow. I don’t mean to dismiss or underestimate the damage you have done to this nation — it has certainly been profound and lasting — but I want you to know that your legacy will not be one of grandeur and brilliance; it will be the legacy of a shameless, desperate bully. Both your opponents and your proponents hoist you up as a world leader with a grand vision, whether benevolent or malevolent. I, on the other hand, believe you have the vision of a temperamental two year old. You simply want to feel like you’re in control; you want to “win,” you want everybody in the room to pay attention to you, and you’ll stomp your feet and whine until you get your way. You govern like a coddled toddler; it’s inappropriate to pejoratively refer to you as a “dictator,” but only because it lends you a certain unwarranted credibility. I think you wish to be a dictator, but instead you’re just a bumbling bureaucrat; easily replaced and even more easily forgotten. You have the ethics of Genghis Khan, but the leadership skills of Michael Scott. This is why we are forced to witness the spectacle of, for instance, our president brazenly threatening to invade another nation for no reason, only to clumsily abandon the idea after being publicly spanked by Putin.
Your legacy, Mr. President, will be defined by small, shameful things, as your presidency has been primarily a succession of small, shameful things. The platitudes you spouted during your campaign — the theatrics, the pomp, the hype — have all faded. Replaced by the scheming partisan machinations that have come to define your tenure.
Every president has a moment that encapsulates their time in office; your moment, Mr. President, happened this week. Sure, future generations will look at you with mockery and scorn because of bigger scandals — Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives, Obamacare, the birth control mandate and your attacks on religious liberty, spying on journalists, arming terrorists overseas, Fast and Furious, the green energy scams, the bailouts, your support for infanticide, the billions you’ve given to the abortion industry, your cowardice in refusing to address the Gosnell murders, your reckless exploitation of the Zimmerman trial, the out of control deficit spending, your refusal to enforce immigration laws, the massive expansion of the Welfare State, the lies, the broken promises, etc — but I think, in an understated way, what you’ve done this week is a better microcosm of your entire reign.
I’m not just referring to the fact that you are peddling the lie that “Republicans” have “shutdown the government,” when, in fact, they have attempted to pass several bills that would fund the government. Mr. President, you tell these fables to the trained seals in the media and your voting base, but you know damn well that any American with a capacity for critical thought will roundly reject this absurd narrative. YOU have chosen to “shut down” the government because you have made Obamacare the ultimate priority. You have said, “Obamacare or nothing,” and then accused Republicans of being the “hostage takers.” They are holding the government hostage by trying to fund it? What a silly idea. But then, you are a silly, ridiculous president. Speaking of which, this takes us right to your defining moment: barricading memorials and monuments in a ploy to win an argument.
Comparatively insignificant when stacked up against your war crimes and constitutional infringements, but it is nonetheless an apt illustration. The Lincoln Memorial is just a giant statue. There isn’t any reason why people shouldn’t be able to look at a statue during a government shutdown. In past shutdowns, the memorials were open, with only the information centers closing down. The Lincoln Memorial has never been completely closed off from the public until now. You have decided to spend money to block and guard open-air monuments, when it would be cheaper, require less staff, and be less onerous to simply leave them be. Is this some sort of bizarre punitive measure against the American taxpayer?
Infamously, you even attempted to stop WW2 veterans from visiting the WW2 memorial. That memorial is mostly privately funded, and is open 24 hours a day. You SPENT MONEY to physically guard the monument from a group of elderly war veterans. This is truly unprecedented. We have had horrible presidents in the past, but none quite so shallow, cheap and contemptible. You tried to close down Mt. Vernon, which is privately funded, but had to settle for closing its parking lot — even though the parking lot requires no immediate on-going maintenance or surveillance from any federal workers. Did you have to shut down the Normandy cemetery and memorial? Are we saving money that way? I doubt it.
It’s the same game you played during the sequester, and it comes as no surprise to those of us who pay attention (which means it came as a surprise to a large number of people). Rather than leading like a statesman, you hide in the shadows; scheming, conniving, exploiting. You emerge only to make hyper-partisan speeches, with rhetoric best left to Democratic talking heads on afternoon cable news shows. Far from being a “new kind of politician” (as you were advertised), you are the most political politician this country has ever seen. You are political to your core, in your essence, at an atomic level, and so you are unable to offer any direction or clarity when the nation needs it most. Sometimes, Mr. President, the affairs of this nation require a man, not a politician, and it is during those times that you are especially useless. You don’t have any interest in fixing our present crisis because you’re too busy finding ways to keep a bus load of 90 year old war veterans from looking at a memorial.
Closing down parks, monuments and memorials just to score political points is hardly your most insidious deed, but it’s certainly one of your pettiest. That’s why it stands, ironically, as a monument of its own. If we ever build a statue of you, Mr. President, you won’t be triumphantly holding a flaming torch like Lady Liberty, or standing authoritatively with a look of determination, like the MLK memorial. No, it will be a statue of you pulling the wings off of a fly, or spitting in someone’s orange juice. It will show you in your essence, as monuments are meant to do. It will show you as a petulant, skulking, juvenile bully. It will you show you as you are.
And we’ll make sure it’s always open, especially during a government shut down.
Sincerely,
Matt Walsh
http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/10/03/an-open-letter-to-president-obama/
nuncaquite
New Member
You as usual answering for other people. You are just a born defender of those who speak acid and then run and hide.
Did you miss the comment of Mr. Reid about the children with cancer? Did you also miss the way in which he earned his money.
Does that give you an insight to what type of a person he is?
Does character matter?
I really hope that you are just having fun with some of the comments you make.
nuncaquite
New Member
Some might think you are reflecting your own faults and short comings onto me.
But as for me, I welcome the discipline. With your help I am now back in my place.
[)][)]Some might think you are reflecting your own faults and short comings onto me.
But as for me, I welcome the discipline. With your help I am now back in my place.
"Some" people are morons......JMHO.
nuncaquite
New Member
The above statement is a perfect example of reflection. This is what I was pointing out to you. Its when one mirrors his faults onto others.[
)]Bro, you are not a very thoughtful person. You speak/write without thinking.
When someone thoughtful speaks, try listening. Make an attempt to understand how they came upon their view. Take into consideration that you just may not know everything.
Search for the truth. Dont make me explain what the Talon says about you.[)]The above statement is a perfect example of reflection. This is what I was pointing out to you. Its when one mirrors his faults onto others.[
Bro, you are not a very thoughtful person. You speak/write without thinking.
When someone thoughtful speaks, try listening. Make an attempt to understand how they came upon their view. Take into consideration that you just may not know everything.
Lol...you're a moron...lol!
Today I decided to do my part for global warming. After lighting up my cigar I decided to reflect on some of the posts here. Is this a great country, or what? Everyone is entitled to say what they want. This thread is proof of that.
While grilling steaks on an open flame bar-b-q pit I thought about how many years the US of A has been around compared to every other nation in the world. In the grand scheme of things I would venture to say that she has provided more opportunities, and continues to provide more opportunities than any other country in the history of mankind, but I could be wrong. She has paid for with blood, and liberated countries of some pretty bad dudes. You probably heard the names of a few of them good 'old boys, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, just to mention a few.
Not too long back Floyd Mayweather became the highest paid athlete in the world at $50 million per fight. This was close to the time the movie about Steve Jobs was released. As I drew down on my stoggie it dawned on me Barack Obama our President wasn't raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and had struggled along his way to the Presidency.
Not to mention,
Pretty good earnings, not sure how many other countries allow individuals to profit in any manner they choose. Why is it the US of A continues to hold people back?
I keep hearing how this country is unfair, and the system sucks. Only in America do we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I do not spit on beggars. No, as I have said, I have a moral obligation to provide for my family, do my share of tithing, and thus believe that there are better options that can lend a hand up than the government. After all, you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper then you can do it yourself. Unfortunately, the nations welfare numbers reflect the general con census that it's the Governments job to provide, so why work. If I don't have to work, then why should I pay for health insurance, or my food for that matter.
Maybe one of the rich Dr's can start mailing me a portion of their check on a regular monthly basis. I'm having issues since my Hamster died. Normal life expectancy for males is 84, and since I'm 50 I'll "only" need them sent for another 34 years. Phew, close call and glads that's coming in now. I really enjoy my cigars, wine, and steak.
Do you know how to catch wild pigs?
You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.
They get used to that and start to eat, again you continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Now the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
Some people see this happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms just a little at a time.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. The US of A has/had the best health care system in the world period. Its probably a pretty safe assumption that not to many Americans get sick and seek treatment in another country. Is it perfect, No; however it was the best in the world based on "the" system that built it.
Echo-Foxtrot-Charlie, Tower. DTdr2 out
While grilling steaks on an open flame bar-b-q pit I thought about how many years the US of A has been around compared to every other nation in the world. In the grand scheme of things I would venture to say that she has provided more opportunities, and continues to provide more opportunities than any other country in the history of mankind, but I could be wrong. She has paid for with blood, and liberated countries of some pretty bad dudes. You probably heard the names of a few of them good 'old boys, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, just to mention a few.
Not too long back Floyd Mayweather became the highest paid athlete in the world at $50 million per fight. This was close to the time the movie about Steve Jobs was released. As I drew down on my stoggie it dawned on me Barack Obama our President wasn't raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and had struggled along his way to the Presidency.
Not to mention,
Pretty good earnings, not sure how many other countries allow individuals to profit in any manner they choose. Why is it the US of A continues to hold people back?
I keep hearing how this country is unfair, and the system sucks. Only in America do we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I do not spit on beggars. No, as I have said, I have a moral obligation to provide for my family, do my share of tithing, and thus believe that there are better options that can lend a hand up than the government. After all, you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper then you can do it yourself. Unfortunately, the nations welfare numbers reflect the general con census that it's the Governments job to provide, so why work. If I don't have to work, then why should I pay for health insurance, or my food for that matter.
Maybe one of the rich Dr's can start mailing me a portion of their check on a regular monthly basis. I'm having issues since my Hamster died. Normal life expectancy for males is 84, and since I'm 50 I'll "only" need them sent for another 34 years. Phew, close call and glads that's coming in now. I really enjoy my cigars, wine, and steak.
Do you know how to catch wild pigs?
You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.
They get used to that and start to eat, again you continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Now the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
Some people see this happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms just a little at a time.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. The US of A has/had the best health care system in the world period. Its probably a pretty safe assumption that not to many Americans get sick and seek treatment in another country. Is it perfect, No; however it was the best in the world based on "the" system that built it.
Echo-Foxtrot-Charlie, Tower. DTdr2 out
Last edited:
Similar threads
Sponsors
Latest posts
-
Wuhan Wansheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (USA, International)
- Latest: Andrewthatguy
-
-
